


Fire Divine and Infernal

by Woland



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Aziraphale begins to develop feelings, But he doesn’t know what to do about it yet, Crowley Whump (Good Omens), Crowley is still Crawly in this one, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Art, M/M, Pre-Arrangement (Good Omens), Sodom and Gomorrah missing scene, or what it means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:35:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24558541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woland/pseuds/Woland
Summary: I sawthis beautiful work by @midarilon tumblr and got inspired. That's all, that's the summary :)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I swear this is the last WIP I'll be starting until I get another one finished.

_Oh_. 

That’s the first thing that crosses the angel’s mind when the dust settles and he opens his eyes to survey the damage: broken pieces of stone littering the ground all around him, pinning him with their weight; fire raging beyond the rubble of what used to be Lot’s home; violent flashes of lightning up above him, fiery bolts streaming across the dark night sky to wreak death and destruction on the sinful ground below. Both his legs and his right wing are completely buried under the rubble. The wing is likely broken, if the awful throbbing pain that radiates from his carpal joint all the way to his shoulder is anything to go by. 

_Oh dear_.

He knew the city of Sodom had been doomed for its sins; knew that the Judgment was coming, that Gabriel and Sandalphon had already concluded their business with Lot’s family and had gone back Upstairs to initiate the Divine Punishment, as it were. Knew that he really needed to get out as well. 

But there were writings in Lot’s house. Abraham’s writings that, along with some other items, Lot wanted to take with him but didn’t get a chance to before he and his family were transported beyond the city’s walls. And Aziraphale… well, Aziraphale couldn’t allow written words to just _burn_ , could he. It was simply inconceivable. So he lingered behind, hastily (but with appropriate care) stuffing the precious writings into a specially miracled bag.

Only he took a moment too long, and, just as he placed the last of Abraham’s works inside his bag and spread out his wings, prepared to transport himself out of the city, a deafening explosion of divine power ripped through the air, and the ground shook, and the world around him dissolved into rubble and ash.

He needs to get out of here, that much is obvious. Because the ground still trembles, and lightning continues to rain down from the sky, condemning everything below it to a fiery death. If he stays here any longer, he will perish, too. And it won’t be just his corporation that’ll get destroyed either. This is Her punishment, Her wrath. Aziraphale doubts that anything that gets in its path is meant to survive. 

He snaps his fingers, expecting the rubble that traps him to disappear, to allow him to get up. Only nothing happens. Not the first, nor the second, nor the third or the fourth time he tries, each snap getting more and more frantic, and his heart sinks as he realizes something he should have realized from the start. That a city condemned by Her is doomed in every single way – no last-minute miracles, no miraculous escapes. It’s a miracle-free zone, a dead zone. Oh, he’s definitely in trouble. In deep, deep trouble.

“Aziraphale?”

A familiar voice startles him, and he lifts his pounding head off the ground to frown at a tall, lanky figure that stands shadowed in what used to be a doorway. 

“Sensed a familiar presence. I thought it was you.” The figure takes a step forward just as another lightning bolt streaks across the sky, casting a harsh glow on the thin, sharp features framed by a waving mane of flame-red hair.

“Crawly?”

He hates the slight tremor in his voice, the fearful apprehension that comes with the realization that, in his current state, he is completely at the mercy of his mortal enemy. Granted, during the few interactions he’s had with the demon so far, Crawly has never exhibited any ill will toward him. Has shown himself, in fact, to be something of an unusual demon, someone with a clear (though vehemently denied) capacity for compassion and kindness as he has demonstrated with his actions during the Flood.

But... Aziraphale is helpless now. What if Crawly takes advantage of his current state to destroy him? What if he had been waiting for such an opportunity all this time?

“What… what are _you_ doing here?”

The demon shrugs, wide yellow eyes glinting strangely in the ominous light of the fires that rage around them in the dying city. “Fire raining down from the Heavens? Been a while since I’ve seen something like it.” He smirks – a strange, bitter twist of the thin lips, an odd shadow marring his features. “Last time it happened I was right in the middle of it. And now I get to watch it happen from the sidelines. It’s an interesting change of perspective.”

“So you’ve… you’ve come here to gloat over these people’s suffering?” A flare of righteous anger rushes through him, and Aziraphale lurches upright, having forgotten for a moment about his pinned wing. The wing reminds him of its predicament instantly and with such vehemence, that his vision whitens out momentarily, his body frozen in a grotesque rigor of pain. An instant later he collapses backwards with a pathetic, quiet moan, spent. 

“Your God is the one who condemned them to this suffering, angel.” 

The quiet, reproachful response sounds much closer all of a sudden, and Aziraphale risks opening his eyes, startled to find the demon crouching down beside him.

“Indiscriminately, it seems,” Crawly adds, one slender hand reaching gingerly toward his trapped wing. 

Aziraphale flinches despite himself, and the demon pauses halfway to his goal, flicks his gaze over to Aziraphale’s face, one eyebrow raised in mocking, silent disapproval. Aziraphale, for some inexplicable reason, feels ashamed of his reaction.

“It’s not… it wasn’t,” he begins, trying to divert both his and the demon’s attention from the fact that he’s virtually vibrating with tension at his enemy’s closeness, “it’s my fault. I got distracted and…”

“And now you’re trapped,” Crawly sums up dryly, still watching him with that uncomfortably piercing, accusatory expression. 

“Well,” he bristles, “I’m certain if they knew I was down here, they would….” He trails off, suddenly unsure. Because they knew, didn’t they? They came together, after all. They saw him linger behind. Sandalphon did, at least. Aziraphale remembers the archangel looking directly at him before they disappeared with Lot’s family. Wouldn’t they notice that he didn’t join them?

Crawly, apparently, gets all he needs from Aziraphale’s awkward silence. “Right,” he murmurs, lips pulling into a knowing sneer. And then before Aziraphale has a chance to say anything else, he rocks forward onto his knees and starts pulling pieces of rubble off Aziraphale’s wing.

“Wh…what are you doing?”

Crawly pauses, a stone held loosely in his hand before he tosses it carelessly onto the small pile of debris he had already cleared. Gives Aziraphale a pointed look that seems to call into doubt the angel’s intellectual capabilities and powers of observation.

“Keeping you from getting your pretty white feathers singed,” he says, flat. “Would you like me to stop?”

“No, I… that’s not.” The angel shakes his head, cursing his pain-addled mind’s woeful inability to focus. “Why?”

Crawly shrugs, resuming his task. Mutters with gruff nonchalance belied by the unmistakable edge of tension in his voice, “Been on the receiving end of that lightning once, angel. Wouldn’t wish it on another.”

Aziraphale doesn’t know how to respond to that. Doesn’t even know where to begin. Just stares mutely at the strange enigma of a demon before him, his mind and soul awhirl in a peculiar mix of sympathetic pity, gratitude and awed disbelief.

“You… came for me?” The question spills out without conscious thought, his voice raspy and reed-thin.

Crawly twitches one shoulder in a gesture of forced insouciance, his gaze focused resolutely on the task at hand. “Saw three angels come down here, only two left before the lightshow began, so… I thought I’d check.” 

“Oh, my dear.” There’s a warm feeling in Aziraphale’s chest, growing, spreading, setting his eyes and skin aglow.

Crawly hisses, jerking his hand away from where it was brushing against Aziraphale’s wing. “Tone it down, will ya,” he grumbles, rubbing the back of his hand. “Bad enough I got Holy Fire raining down on me, I don’t need you smiting me as a thank you.”

“I’m so terribly sorry, dear boy,” Aziraphale frets, stricken, reining in the glow of his Grace. Reaches for the demon’s hand in an awkward attempt to soothe. “I didn’t mean–”

Crawly hunches in on himself, shifting just out of his reach. Waves off Aziraphale’s concern. “S’fine, angel. Don’t get your feathers in a twist.”

Minutes pass in strained, awkward silence, as Crawly continues to work, methodically removing the remaining stones pinning down the angel’s wing and tossing them aside with a bit more force than necessary, while Aziraphale tries very hard (and unsuccessfully) not to think about Crawly’s words and actions and what they all mean.

“Wing’s free.”

“Pardon?” Aziraphale starts, pulled out of his failed efforts at not thinking.

“Your wing,” Crawly repeats patiently, pointing at the appendage in question. “S’probably broken, but we can’t do anything about it here – miracle-free zone and all.” An expression of empathetic apology flits across the demon’s face before he forces it away, lips pursed. “Anyway, no point in you lounging about anymore, yeah?” he grouses, hiding the earlier show of concern behind a mask of irritability. “Help me get the rest of this mess cleared, so we can get out of this place before your overeager colleagues finish us both off, huh?”

Aziraphale bristles at the harsh tone, but chooses to let it go, seeing it for the deflection it is. They do need to talk about this, Crawly and he. Aziraphale certainly has things he’d like to say. But Crawly’s right, now’s not the time to dally. 

“Of course, dear boy,” he says instead, and pushes himself to sit up, slowly, mindful of his damaged wing. The movement still hurts, despite the care he’s taken, and he gasps as a sharp jolt of pain shoots up his mangled limb, but he powers through it, intent on helping Crawly clear the rubble off of him.

He doesn’t get far.

Crawly’s hand grips his shoulder, harsh and without warning, and then, inexplicably, he’s being shoved rather crudely back down. The back of his already aching head collides heavily with the unforgiving ground, and for a moment his world whitens out again, a deafening roar filling his ears like that of an approaching tidal wave.

And then his vision clears, and the world comes sharply back into focus, and that tidal wave crashes over him in a heart-stopping avalanche of ice-cold dread.

He sees the demon, crouching on all fours above him, his enormous night-black wings spread out fully to create an added shield above Aziraphale’s head. He sees the demon’s face – a ghastly pale, twisted mask of pure agony, made paler still by the contrast with the cascade of fiery locks that spill about it. He sees the minute shivers that wrack the demon’s thin, wiry frame. Sees the way his arms tremble with the effort of holding him up. Sees the strain of that same effort in the deep furrow that creases his forehead, in his tightly squeezed eyes, in the stiff clench of his jaw.

And he sees red. Sees it coating the needle-sharp points of three lightning bolts that have embedded themselves in Crawly’s back, tearing their way through his corporation to protrude grotesquely from his narrow chest. Sees fine, steady streams of it trickling down, down, down from the awful wounds to paint macabre patterns on the angel’s snow-white robe.

“Crawly…” The demon’s name spills from his lips in a broken gasp of a whisper, his hand clamping shakily over his own mouth an instant later to stifle a horrified sob.

The demon eyes flutter open at the muffled sound – two bulging orbs of liquid acid-yellow fire, split down the middle by pinstripes of shimmering black. Slowly, dazedly, they fasten on the angel’s, noting the unbidden tears there, the fear, the shock. Then, inexplicably, they soften, the glare of pain in them masked briefly by a strained shadow of mischief. The ashen lips twitch, molding themselves into a twisted grimace of a smile. 

“Thasss gonna leave a mark,” the demon croaks, a strange gurgle accompanying the labored words.

His eyes slam back shut a heartbeat later, his features screwing up in agony as a more violent shiver rolls through him, and Aziraphale lurches upwards, jolting out of his momentary stupor just as Crawly’s right arm snaps and buckles and the demon topples helplessly into the angel’s awkwardly held out arms, collapsing against him with a pained groan.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Aziraphale panics. For the first time since waking up half-buried by a toppled building he well and truly panics. It’s an ugly, uncomfortable feeling that presses down on him, squeezing the air out of his needless lungs and leaving a prickly sheen of sweat on his skin. 

“Crawly?”

There’s a tremble. In his voice, in the arms that are wrapped awkwardly around the demon’s crumpled form, in the tips of his mangled, dust-stained wings. It is even in the air around him – a vibrating, tension-filled shudder of anticipation of more destruction to come.

Only the demon remains perfectly still in his arms. And it is that awful, deathlike stillness of the wiry body slumped against him that makes the panic within him swell and spread. 

“Crawly, please!”

They couldn’t stay here like this, injured and vulnerable. They needed to move, to get out of the doomed city before it was too late. (He refused to acknowledge the nagging fear that it may already _be_ too late for one of them.) 

Aziraphale glances down at the still figure in his arms, at the wet stain spreading across his midsection from the slow but steady drip-drip-drip of Crawly’s blood. His legs are still trapped, and he cannot free himself if he’s holding on to Crawly. He also can’t exactly put Crawly down with those awful bolts of Heavenly lightning still sticking out of his body.

He worries his lip. Reaches out, wrapping his fingers around the blunt edge of the closest bolt. The contact burns, sears like fire across his skin. It isn’t meant to be gentle, this Heavenly Weapon. It’s meant to decimate, to destroy, to torch everything it touches, leaving behind nothing but ash. Even angels. And it is now embedded inside a demon’s chest. Aziraphale cannot even imagine how badly it must hurt him. For some reason (a reason he’s not quite ready to admit to himself yet) the thought of the demon being in so much pain because of him bothers him a great deal more than it should.

He clenches his fingers tighter, resisting the urge to yank his hand away, takes a deep breath and pulls.

_One_.

The first lightning bolt slips out of Crawly’s body with a sickening slurp. He tosses it aside, hand shaking. Grabs hold of the next one before he loses his resolve.

_Two._

_Three._

Against him the demon shudders, arches backwards, mouth opening to let out a gurgled rasp of a scream. A gush of warm liquid spills out of the open wounds, soaking into Aziraphale’s tunic.

“Oh dear….” Aziraphale’s hand flutters in momentary indecision over the front of the demon’s tunic, but there’s nothing he can do for him here in this miracle-free zone. Can’t even afford the time it would take to give the demon a modicum of comfort. He shushes him instead. Shifts awkwardly to lay him down on the ground beside him as gently as he possibly can. “Just… just bear with me a moment, my dear,” he tells the gasping, pain-rigid demon, “I won’t be a tick.”

Swiftly, hurriedly, he shoves aside the pieces of rubble still lying atop of his feet, heedless of the sharp edges that bite into the skin of his palms. He scrambles to his feet and nearly goes right back down as pain shoots up his right leg, swift and searing like lightning, darkening his vision and stealing his breath. For a brief moment he thinks that that’s exactly what this is, that he had tarried too long and has been struck. But then he glances down at his leg, sees the bruising there and the blood, sees the unnatural bend of his corporation’s ankle.

“Oh, bugger….” 

It’s painful. Standing is very painful. He imagines walking would be even more so. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do it. How he’s supposed to carry the weight of another when he doubts he can even carry his own. He doesn’t know if he can.

Oh, but he doesn’t really have the choice in the matter, now, does he. 

He glances down at Crawly – pasty pale and limp on the rubble-strewn floor, his pained gasps tapered off once again into unsettling silence as his demonic essence grows weaker to Aziraphale’s senses with each passing second. 

“Right,” he tells himself. “No time to dally.”

Gingerly, he kneels down on his bad leg, scoops the demon’s unresisting form into his arms, and pushes himself to stand. The pain that comes with the movement is almost enough to make him go right back down again. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, teeth clamped around a swell of nausea and a nascent scream. Sucks in a few deep, faltering breaths as he tries to wrestle his corporation under control.

_Come on_ , he pleads with himself. _It’s only a body, a physical shell. It’s unimportant. The damage to your wing is much more serious than that. You can do this. Buck up!_

Another bolt of lightning splits the ground not far from where he’s standing, the sizzle of burnt ground thickening the already smoke-filled air. A vivid reminder of the precariousness of their situation. Aziraphale opens his eyes with a snap, wraps his arms tighter around his unresponsive burden, and forces himself into a hobbling run.

***

He feels the moment they cross the unseen barrier that She has placed around the city. Feels it with every fiber of his being that sings with excitement as power just recently denied to him floods back into his eagerly awaiting essence. Pain vanishes with a mere thought as broken bones mend back together and scrapes and bruises vanish, leaving behind clear, unblemished skin. He nearly sobs with relief, dizzy with the overwhelming weight of it. 

But there isn’t time for him to celebrate. Not just yet.

He drops down onto his knees at the base of a grassy hillside just outside the city. Gingerly eases the demon onto the ground beside him, trying not to be discouraged by how worryingly listless the demon is, how much fainter his demonic signature has become in the time it took Aziraphale to bring him out here. 

He pulls apart the rip in the demon’s clothing, gasping at the damage that was hidden from view by the dark fabric. There’s blood, lots of it, oozing in relentless crimson rivulets from the three deep puncture wounds. And those are… awful, they are awful, but Aziraphale knew they would be just from the nature of the wounds. But it’s the sight of the steadily growing stains of inky blackness that extend outwards from each wound, spreading tentacle-like across the demon’s narrow chest, that momentarily turns the breath inside him to ice.

He should have expected this, in all fairness. The wounds were made with a Heavenly weapon, after all. _Her_ weapon. They should have destroyed the demon on impact. It was, in fact, the very thought that had briefly crossed Aziraphale’s horror-stricken mind when he’d looked up at Crawly crouching above him and realized just what the demon had done. He had expected him to turn to ash right then and there. The fact that he didn’t was a miracle in and of itself. And it probably means something. Something important. It must do. Aziraphale’s sure of it. He just can’t think on that right now. Because the demon is still dying here before him, albeit slowly. And somehow, for a reason he’s still reluctant to explore, Aziraphale must find a way to stop it.

The only question remaining was… how.

Hesitantly, he holds his hands above the demon’s chest, fingers splayed. Lets his Healing Grace pour slowly into the weeping wounds. There’s a brief moment of timidly triumphant joy when the flow of blood slows and the burnt edges of the rent tissue straining feebly toward each other in an attempt to knit closed. But then a ripple of disturbance skitters across the stygian veins that creep outwards from the edges of the wounds. They shimmer and twist and lurch, surging forward suddenly to gain more ground. Crawly’s back arches up off the floor, his lava-yellow eyes blown wide with pain.

“Ssssstop!”

Azirphale jerks his hands back as though he’s been burnt, words of useless apology dying on his tongue. Beside him, Crawly twists sharply onto his side, thin arms wrapped around his bloodied chest, and begins to heave and cough. The coughs sound harsh and wet and awful, his whole being nearly coming apart from the force of them, too-dark blood dribbling down his chin and tears escaping from under the tightly squeezed eyelids. It seems to go on forever, this dreadful torment that Aziraphale is the unwitting, unwilling and, worst of all, _worst of all_ , utterly helpless witness to. 

Eventually, mercifully, the terrible coughs trail off, and the demon stills – a twisted wreck of dark, bloodstained fabric and trembling limbs, pale, tear-streaked face pressed into the grassy earth.

Aziraphale reaches for him. Then stops, hand hovering just above the shivering, black-clad shoulder.

“What can I do?” he asks, no, _pleads_. Because he needs to do _something_ , needs to fix this somehow. There has to be a way to fix this. Hasn’t there? He _needs_ for there to be something. 

“Put me out of my misery,” Crawly mumbles into the ground, words slurred and muffled by the blood-spattered grass.

Aziraphale draws in a shocked breath, shakes his head in desperate, horrified denial. He couldn’t. The very thought of it. He could never! 

“Crawly, please!”

There must be something in his voice that gets through to the demon, because the latter shifts ever so slightly, turning his face so he can glare at Aziraphale out of one bleary eye, the sclera brimming molten yellow with pain. 

“Why?”

The question – a thin, raspy echo of his own earlier unwarranted, cruel doubt – feels like a slap across his face. A sharp, stinging blow. One he undeniably deserves.

_Because you saved me_ , he wants to cry out. _Because it should have been me in your place. Because I have misjudged you terribly, I have misjudged everything terribly, and now you’re paying the price. Because I do not wish to see you die._

He swallows, pressing his lips tight against their nervous tremor. Gives himself a moment, just a single moment to collect his bumbling thoughts.

“I… It’s a celestial wound.” He pauses for effect, hoping the message he’s trying to relay is clear enough, that he won’t have to put it all into words out here in the open for anyone to hear (for _Her_ to hear).

The demon doesn’t respond. Simply cracks an eyebrow at him with an expression of unimpressed mockery, and Aziraphale can virtually hear the sarcastic _“no, really?”_ float into the space between them. _Of course,_ Aziraphale thinks miserably, _of course Crawly wouldn’t make this easy._ Well, nothing for it, he supposes.

“I’ve seen what those weapons can do to demons, Crawly.” _What it’s doing to you right now, right this very second._ “I…” He flicks his gaze upwards, drops his voice to a harsh whisper, hunching in on himself as though expecting Heavenly retribution at any moment for the egregiousness of his thoughts. “I do not wish this fate upon you.”

The demon regards him silently for a long, stilted moment. Then his eye slides closed, blood-stained lips parting to release a murmur of a word into the trampled grass beneath his cheek.

“Hellfire.”

And, _oh_ , Aziraphale thinks, _oh, that makes sense_. It would be like… like Holy Water for the angels. He remembers seeing a gravely injured angel during the War, dying. And it was, in fact, Holy Water that had saved him. Perhaps Hellfire could do the same for Crawly now. The only question was…

“H-how do I get it for you?”

Reluctantly the demon opens his eyes again, shakes his head minutely. “You can’t. I gotta… gotta get Downstairs.” Feebly he attempts to gather his long limbs, straining to raise his trembling form up and off the ground. But that battle is lost before it even begins, and he collapses back down with a pained moan, sharp teeth digging into the already bloodied lip.

Aziraphale winces in sympathy that, by all rights, he should not be feeling. Not for a demon. Especially not here, mere steps away from the city She had decided to erase from existence for disobeying Her covenants. But Crawly isn’t _just_ a demon, is he. He’s a demon who defied Her Sentence to rescue a group of children out of the raging floodwaters. A demon who used his own body as a shield to protect an angel from the fallout of Her Wrath. A demon whose first words to Aziraphale had been ones of lighthearted humor and genuine, undemonic support. 

He doesn’t know what it was that Crawly has done to defy Her in the dark days of the War, doesn’t know what it was that made him Fall. But every act of defiance he’d witnessed since has been committed for the sake of good.

Aziraphale flicks another hesitant gaze in the direction of the still-raging but conspicuously silent Heavens and makes a decision.

“I’ll take you there.”

Agony-lined face turns toward him once more, amber slits blink bewilderedly up at him. “Wot?”

Aziraphale shifts forward, gently gathers the demon back in his arms, ignoring the latter’s surprised squawk of protest. Stands, unfurling his wings behind him, his back to the doomed city. “I’ll take you there,” he repeats, surprising even himself with the unwavering certainty of his resolve. “If you would just tell me where to go.”

He lets the phrase hang, looking expectantly at the demon who has gone oddly stiff in his arms, staring up at him with wide unblinking eyes that appear uncharacteristically scared and open and fragile in the too narrow space between them. _Trust me_ , Aziraphale pleads, holding the confused and timorously hopeful searching gaze. _Please. I only wish to help._

The amber-gold eyes blink tiredly, the pale, paper-thin eyelids dipping, and the demon relents, murmuring the directions on a faint exhale. An instant later the shocked tension seeps out of his body and he sags in Aziraphale’s hold, his head lolling feebly until his face nestles with trusting vulnerability against Aziraphale’s throat.

And it takes every ounce of Aziraphale’s concentration, as he races through the air cradling the rapidly weakening demon against him, to ignore the unfamiliar sensation of warmth that spreads within his chest at the jarring intimacy of that contact.

***

He never knew what happened after he dropped the demon off by the gaping maw of a cave that served as the entrance to Hell. The demon had demanded that Aziraphale not accompany him inside. Argued that angels had no business stepping foot inside Hell, that he would be fine on his own. Aziraphale had argued, too. Of course, he did. Because the demon was so terribly weak, so helpless. Aziraphale couldn’t just leave him like that, could he. He had to make sure that Crawly reached the healing safety of infernal fire, that he didn’t succumb to his injuries before then. And he would have been perfectly willing to brave the revolting aura of evil that choked the very air around the cave to do it. 

But Crawly had taken the choice from him. Had twisted out of Aziraphale’s grasp, transforming his failing body into a snake, and slithered out of view.

He hasn’t seen Crawly since. He’d tried looking for him, of course. In Egypt, in Mesopotamia, in the land of Canaan. He had asked around, surreptitiously, listening for any and all rumors of sightings of a man with a mane of flame-red hair and the golden eyes of a snake. 

There had been nothing. No news, no stories, no glimpses of a familiar wiry figure clad in black. Not for nearly two thousand years. 

But then he finds himself standing at the edge of the crowd at Golgotha, watching with a heavy heart as another one of Her decisions that he does not understand comes to pass. And then he feels it – a spark of that longed-for familiar presence just at the edge of his senses, and then:

“Come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?”

And then the demon’s right there beside him, cool and unflappable and bitingly sarcastic, and he can’t help the way his corporation and his very essence turn and reach toward the angular shape of him, unfurling like a flower toward the warmth of the sun. Can’t help the smile that pulls at his lips as they settle into the now familiar, if a bit awkward, banter.

_Crowley_ , he thinks, sounding out the demon’s new chosen name, rolling it out on his tongue. He likes it, he decides. Oh, he likes it very, very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but here we are, finally. Thank you, everyone, for reading and commenting.   
> Hugs to you all, stay safe


End file.
